Dragonfall

Game #4 Faleen's Perspective (aka, the truth)

4

OCT/12

The Journey of Reluctant and Practical Chivalry Continues

After the ordeal at the obelisk and the purple mist of doom and decay, during which I skillfully and bravely dispatched many foes, we finally arrived back at Maya’s farmstead, in the hopes that she would give us some food to so that we could prove that the path between the two cities was safe and that trade was possible and profitable. I still wonder how I was convinced to undertake this endeavor to help people who were either too weak or apparently too stupid to recognize the threat they faced and respond accordingly. Despite my waning desire to fulfill our mission, I still can look back and see the logic and practicality of doing it. There was indeed a great evil awakening in the land, and at some point it would find me, and I would rather face it on my terms and with the possible support of a few towns, than with nothing. If this meant I had to embark on some outrageous and dangerous quests to help people I had little to no care about, so be it. I often find it funny how I am now regarded as such a hero, when in reality, my true motivation for doing all I did, was out of a base selfish desire to give myself the best chances of surviving the evil that was growing in the land.

I suppose you are bored with my musings, so I shall return to the purpose of my writing, which is to recount our journey as accurately (or inaccurately) as I see fit. So we had arrived at Maya’s, desiring food to begin our journey to Durnhal. Being small minded and unable to grasp the larger picture, Maya of course refused initially. All she currently cared about was that her precious little farm had been attacked by some strange creatures and we had not yet dealt with them. It wasn’t important that a far greater evil was growing that would inevitably destroy her farm and her with it if she didn’t help us unite the land against it, her only concern was that of her current predicament and nothing beyond. Humanity’s lack of foresight still continues to amaze me.

Unable to make her see reason we agreed to go search again for the strange creatures. Perhaps with the new addition of the strange frog man and our new do gooder tree woman, we might have better luck tracking whatever attacked Maya. We searched around for some time but made no more progress than last time we searched. We eventually reached the decision to investigate the elven outpost ruins south of us that the crazy hermit Jed had told us about. After crossing the local river we began walking through an open meadow with a forest to our right. At some point, those in our group more in tune with nature felt that something was watching us from the woods. We began to search for something and though the shape could not be made out through the dark trees, something decently large was indeed following us. We kept wary of it but it left us alone during our trek. We reached the cliff face around dusk and decided to stop for the night. We found an area partially enclosed by some bushes and a thicket of trees that was suitable to set up camp. We proceeded to set up some traps and alarm systems around our camp and then went to sleep. During my watch around midnight, I heard a strange noise a little ways away. I roused the camp and immediately left to investigate the noise. While investigating the noise I inadvertently triggered some kind of hunters trap and soon found myself hanging fifteen feet off the ground upside down hanging from a rope bound around my ankle. In my anger at being caught by so simple a trap I made the mistake of cutting the rope and fell to the ground and was knocked unconscious.

I suddenly awakened where I had fallen. My head hurt quite a bit and I was hungry and parched. I looked up at the sun which had now risen above the horizon and suddenly realized that it was now early morning. I scrambled to my feet and headed back to camp only to find that my tactically challenged friends had left. It was only typical that they were foolish enough to run off into trouble without their best fighter to be with them. The only other member worth anything in melee combat was that haughty ranger, the rest of the group were wasted in close combat. Knowing that the group would need my help if they had to fight anything (and wanted to win) I searched the cliffs we had been planning to climb to see if they had left any clue as to where they went up. I eventually found some obvious footprints scattered around what looked like a possible path up the cliff face. I also noticed what looked like a large dog-like track and then remembered that something had followed us yesterday. I began to suspect a fight may have happened, but there was no blood on the ground and no bodies, so it was unlikely. With my concerns laid to rest I began to scramble up the path, almost falling a few times. I eventually arrived at the top and few a few more boot prints on the ground. I ran off in the direction they appeared to be heading in.

As luck would have it, I eventually caught up with my friends. Being in the good physical shape I was in, I was able to run at a brisk pace and catch them without being too tired. The first thing I noticed was that a large wolf was amidst the group. I readied my blade in alarm but the group quickly stopped me and told me the story of what happened while I was gone. Apparently this wolf had entered the camp shortly after I left (a good decision on my part in hindsight). The hamadryad Eilonwy somehow perceived that the wolf had recently had pups using her wondrous skills of perceiving useless things. I would have killed the wolf on the spot, but that is neither here nor there. Without my strong handed guidance the group concocted some half baked scheme to befriend the wolf under the ridiculous notion that the same creatures that attacked Maya’s had stolen this wolf’s pups and that the wolf could now help us find and fight these creatures. And then this is where I came in. Despite the outright absurdity of what the group had decided to do based off of their ridiculous assumptions about the vaguest of situations, I went along with them and we continued to track the creatures.

When we caught up, I was genuinely surprised to see that these kobold things did indeed have several captured wolf pups with them. Perhaps my group of companions were not as helpless as I initially thought. Obviously my strong leadership and initiative had begun to rub off on them. We immediately engaged in combat, catching the creatures by surprise. I spotted a large, mean looking one and decided I must kill him. I ran forward and launched on of my javelins at him and shouted in victory as the short spear hit him square in the shoulder with a meaty thunk! He staggered some but still stood, undaunted by his wound. Eildor and his cat friend rushed into melee with me and we soon formed the frontline of the fight. We were soon surrounded by insignificant creatures foolishly trying to attack us. I laughed as my heart filled with the blood lust of battle, my sword swung gracefully through the air, striking all who were foolish enough to get close. I began to lose sight of my companions as my vision clouded red. All I could see were the kobolds and my singing sword as I struck them down. I was vaguely aware of Eilonwy and Alewynn having a bit of trouble with some kobolds. They should have stayed behind us to provide us with support; they had no mind for tactics! Magic users were not front line fighters. Eildor and I continued to tear through our opponents while the collected efforts of Alewynn, Eilonwy, and Renee managed to hold off the kobolds attacking them. Chisurah wisely stayed behind me and Eildor providing us with her skillful ranged support. The mother wolf suddenly came out of nowhere and tore into the kobolds guarding the pups and that’s when the enemy morale really started to disintegrate. The kobolds began fleeing before our awesome might (which I contributed to significantly).

After the battle the wolf chased some down and while she was gone, the animal sympathizers attempted to release the pups from their binding. They charmed them with some kind of nature magic and released them. Just then the mother wolf returned, gathered her pups, and left us. We decided we should split up and try to catch the fleeing kobolds in an effort to see if any of them who had useful information. I went with Alewynn and Eilonwy while Eildor, Chisurah and Renee went together. My group quickly tracked down a small group of kobolds. When we confronted them, they tried to run and we easily slaughtered them. We then decided to wait on the path that the other group would come down. They did eventually return and we reunited and exchanged tales. They told us how they found the large kobold I had wounded. They bartered with it and traded a healing potion for information. The creature told them how something had drawn them from another realm, and that this realm was not their home. The kobold was then set free and he left.

Having taken care of the kobolds, we returned to Maya’s and reported our great success to her. I remember thinking, if she doesn’t give us food now after what we went through to help her, I would personally go destroy something else on her farm and lead her myriad farm animals in a violent revolt against her.